


Sokka and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by s-sokka (poesidone)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blatant Disrespect of and Disdain for Vocal Performance Majors, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Kinda?, M/M, Meet-Cute, Texting, music ed major!sokka, psych major!zuko, the author is not sorry, this is nonsense and i am bad at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26330383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poesidone/pseuds/s-sokka
Summary: He opened his phone to check the confirmation email he had received when he had scheduled his study. Room 407, report to Zuko.Huh. Zuko. Weird name. Cool, but definitely weird. And oddly familiar? But no, he couldn’t have heard that name anywhere before, Sokka was sure he would remember meeting someone with a name that weird (but cool).Sokka strolled down the hallway, scanning the numbers on the doors until he spotted room 407. The door had a handwritten sign taped up to it that said “Please knock before entering.” in neat, blocky handwriting. He checked his watch again and saw that he had arrived with 0 minutes to spare, so he reached up and knocked on the door.It was immediately opened by an unfairly attractive guy with long shaggy hair and an all-black outfit. And a massive scar on his left eye.Oh.So that’s why the name had seemed so familiar. Huh. What a strange coincidence.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 512





	Sokka and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is actually based on a real thing that happened to me in my real life. Like, almost exactly, just a few minor changes. Pretty wacky, huh? Anyway, I thought it would make a cute Zukka fic, so here it is!! Hope y'all enjoy!!
> 
> also, thank you to Chadley (@idiotsokka on tumblr) and Ben (@zukostransboyfriend on tumblr) for beta reading!! You are both geniuses who made this fic gayer, and therefore, better.

Sokka was ready for this stupid day to finally be over. It had not been a good day. At all. In fact, he would go so far as to say it was a bad day. 

First, his coffee machine was broken and he knew he wouldn’t be able to function properly all day without his daily combination of his meds and a strong cup of coffee. Sokka knew that this meant that he needed to get on better meds, but who had time to go to a psychiatrist? Not Sokka, that’s for sure. So, to solve his more urgent problem, he figured he would just go to one of the three Starbucks on campus. 

Bad Idea. Very Bad Idea.

The line at the Starbucks was deceptively long. Like, it didn’t seem very long when he got in it, but some middle aged grad student decided to throw a fit about not getting whipped cream on top of his frap. And then it felt long. 

By the time he got to the front of the line, he had already missed the first 10 minutes of his Drawing Mechanics class, which sucked. The biggest reason it sucked, in Sokka’s opinion, was because it was a small class, not a lecture. This meant that when he had walked into class 20 minutes late with Starbucks the professor had stopped in the middle of his sentence and lowered his glasses onto his nose to glare at Sokka. Which, of course, made everyone else turn around to see what he was glaring at.

Sokka had waved at the class and said, “Hey, sorry I didn’t bring any to share.” raising his drink, before walking to the front of the room (right in front of the professor, of course) and taking his seat.

He really should have just skipped that class, it would have been a nightmare even if he’d actually been on time to it. Their professor was handing back their most recent projects, now graded. As per usual for this class, Sokka had not done well. Not only had he not done well, he had actually somehow managed to full-on fail the assignment this time. Like, 46% fail. This class was going to destroy his 4.0 GPA, officially. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he was allowed to redo the project for a better grade, but his professor absolutely did not allow that.

After he had managed to survive another day of Drawing Mechanics, he then had to run (he wished he didn’t mean this literally, but he did) to the other side of campus to the Performing Arts building so that he wouldn’t miss the start of his Music Theory III class. 

Theory III was kind of a nightmare, too, but at least he was good at it. Theory III was a different kind of nightmare from Drawing Mechanics. Theory III was awful because it was full of Vocal Performance majors. Sokka knew it was wrong to make generalizations, but he couldn’t stand VP majors, especially the tenors. Spirits! Sokka hated tenors and he wasn’t ashamed to say it.

Anyway, Theory III was a nightmare because the VP majors would not. Shut. Up. Ever. Sokka supposed that was sort of the point of being in vocal performance, but he was going to continue to hold it against them.

After a very long 75 minutes of Theory III, listening to VP majors complain about their Italian songs being too long to learn this semester, Sokka had to go to yet another gen ed. Introduction to Psychology. Not a bad class, really, it was certainly better than his gen ed from last semester. 

Sokka regretted taking the stupid Philosphy 101 class every single day. His professor was a guy named Kevin and Sokka was pretty sure Kevin had never taught a class sober, the man was always stoned. The only good thing about that class had been the unfairly good-looking boy that Sokka had sat behind all semester and secretly copied notes from. Kevin’s handwriting was absolutely atrocious, so Sokka relied on the clear and organized notes in neat, blocky handwriting that the boy in front of him took. 

The guy was very interesting to Sokka, he raised his hand a lot, but only to answer questions, never to ask them. Sokka found that weird, for some reason. Like, not only was the guy good-looking, but he was smart too. Even without ever speaking a word to each other, Sokka knew that this guy was totally his type. He would have asked him out if he hadn’t been so focused on his grade in the class. It wouldn’t be the first time Sokka had freaked out a straight guy by asking him out, and he really needed this guy to continue letting him copy his notes.

Sokka was pretty sure the boy realized after a while what Sokka was doing, he could have sworn that he saw the guy smile and shift his notebook a little further to the left so Sokka could see it better. From that improved angle, Sokka had also gotten a better view of the scar that stretched over the left side of the guy’s face and neck. Sokka wasn’t sure if it was weird that he found the scar sexy, but it didn’t matter anyway. After the semester ended, Sokka had never seen the guy again, and probably never would. Oh well, Sokka had more important things to worry about than beautiful boys who read too many books about Kant. Like this stupid Psych class he was currently in.

Ok, to be fair, it wasn’t a terrible class, it was just an _insane_ amount of homework for a gen ed. It was a lecture class with over 300 students, but there was still a participation grade? Sokka wasn’t sure how they were graded on their participation, but every week when he checked Blackboard his participation grade was a full 5/5. He tried not to overthink it.

The assignments themselves were also fine, but, as he was reminded by the professor in class that Bad Day, they had to go to actual studies. To be studied. By actual psych majors. Three times a semester. Why? Sokka wasn’t really sure, but he wanted a good grade in the class so he just went along with it.

Sokka was running out of time to do his study credits, he only had a few more weeks before he got truly busy with preparing for juries and looking for internships for his practicum. And that was-- well, he didn’t even want to think about that right now. 

Sitting in the back of the Psych lecture, Sokka had opened the syllabus to find the sign-up link for the studies. It looked like there was one open later that day before he had to go to the pit orchestra rehearsal for the musical. Sokka had decided long ago that Musical Theatre majors were just as terrible as Vocal Performance majors, just in different ways. Musical Theatre majors had a certain ferality that Sokka had never seen in a human who wasn’t in Musical Theatre. He wasn’t even sure it could be referred to as human, it was distinctly terrifying and unnatural. At least they were nice to the musicians they worked with.

Sokka clicked the sign-up button for the study happening later that day without looking to see what the study was even about, and felt a bit better about his grade in Psych. He would get at least a third of the study points now, which wasn’t much, but it was better than zero.

After Psych ended, Sokka went to Starbucks again. Yeah, he had afternoon ADHD meds too, but his prescription was too out of wack at this point for those to do him any good. As he waited in the Starbucks line for the second time that day, Sokka set a reminder on his phone to text Bato about setting up an appointment with his psychiatrist when he came home for Thanksgiving break in a few weeks. 

He would have texted his dad, but Sokka knew that his dad would forget, Bato would text him back in an hour with the appointment date and time. Sokka was glad that his dad had Bato, without him his dad would probably be completely lost. Not that his dad wasn’t a very intelligent and capable man on his own, but he was just as ADHD as Sokka was and couldn’t remember anything.

After draining his second iced red-eye of the day (he did not pause to take a breath, he simply took the lid off and downed the entire venti cup in one go. He chose to ignore the horrified stares he received from other students. It was better that way.) He stepped into the large building located near the Business Administration building, which Sokka had never gone in. He had never gone in the building he was about to be tested in, either, but he had passed it before and wondered what it was used for. He never would have guessed that it was psych majors using other students as guinea pigs.

So, here he was now. Sitting outside the elevators in the psych study building (he had already forgotten the name of it) looking over the score for the show he was tasked with playing for. He was glad it was a contemporary musical, because if it had been a classical one he would have been expected to play eight different percussion instruments. With contemporary theatre, he only needed a drum kit and he was all set.

He looked down at his watch, the psych study (test? experiment? Sokka wasn’t sure what to call it) was supposed to start at 4:30 and it was 4:27 now. He sighed and stuffed the sheet music back into his backpack. He didn’t bother zipping it up before slinging it over his shoulder, he knew nothing would fall out, he’d done this enough times to be sure of that.

He opened his phone to check the confirmation email he had received when he had scheduled his study. _Room 407, report to Zuko_.

Huh. Zuko. Weird name. Cool, but definitely weird. And oddly familiar? But no, he couldn’t have heard that name anywhere before, Sokka was sure he would remember meeting someone with a name that weird (but cool).

Sokka strolled down the hallway, scanning the numbers on the doors until he spotted room 407. The door had a handwritten sign taped up to it that said “Please knock before entering.” in neat, blocky handwriting. He checked his watch again and saw that he had arrived with 0 minutes to spare, so he reached up and knocked on the door.

It was immediately opened by an unfairly attractive guy with long shaggy hair and an all-black outfit. And a massive scar on his left eye.

Oh. 

So that’s why the name had seemed so familiar. Huh. What a strange coincidence. If he hadn’t been having such a Bad Day today, Sokka might have thought it was a second chance from the universe to ask the guy out. But, as it was, Sokka had been having a Bad Day, so testing his luck would probably end with him getting yelled at by a straight guy, which was not something Sokka enjoyed.

Sokka was sure it was just wishful thinking (again) when he saw a glimmer of recognition pass over the guy’s face. There was no way this hot guy remembered Sokka the way Sokka remembered him.

Sokka stuck out his hand, deciding to play it cool and act as straight as he could. “Hey, I’m Sokka. I’m here to do a psych study. You probably already guessed that though. Are you Zuko?”

The guy blinked at him for a moment before hesitantly shaking his hand. It was a weak handshake, but Sokka decided to give him the benefit of the doubt; the guy probably had not been expecting to shake anyone’s hand in that moment.

The guy (Zuko? Sokka was still waiting on confirmation) cleared his throat.

“Yeah, that’s me.” (Zuko, indeed, then.)

“Cool, well, the email said I’m supposed to report to you, so here I am. Reporting. To you.” Sokka was trying to will his brain to produce words and sentences that made sense, but his efforts didn’t seem to be working very well.

“I can see that.” Zuko eyed Sokka, before checking the clipboard he was clutching tightly in his left hand. “Do you have your student ID with you? I need to confirm that you’re actually Sokka before letting you in.”

_What an intriguing thing to say,_ Sokka thought as he pulled out his ID from his phone wallet and presented it to Zuko. He wondered what was in the room that was forbidden to see without the proper clearance from a psych major.

“What’s in that room that’s forbidden to see without proper clearance from a psych major?” Sokka’s brain decided to ask without first consulting Sokka about it. Rude.

Zuko looked up from where he was checking Sokka’s identity against a piece of paper, he looked surprised, which Sokka supposed was fair.

“Nothing, those are just the rules that grad students made up to make it seem more official.” While Sokka appreciated the honesty of the answer, he had to admit he was disappointed that it wasn’t more exciting.

“I appreciate the honesty of your answer, but I have to admit that I’m disappointed that it’s not something more exciting.” Yeah, Sokka definitely needed new meds. Hopefully ones that stopped him from blurting out the first thought that came to his mind. “Have you finished verifying my identity, or are there more arbitrary grad student regulations we have to adhere to?”

Zuko looked surprised again, which Sokka thought was not as fair as the first time, because he should have been more used to Sokka’s word vomit the second time around. He let it slide though, because confusion was a cute look for him and Sokka liked it.

“No, you’re all good. You can come in and take a seat at any of one of the computers against the wall.” Zuko handed Sokka back his ID and stepped back to open the door wider for Sokka to step in. Sokka took the opportunity while Zuko was writing something on his clipboard to admire the guy’s looks. He was wearing baggy clothes, but Sokka wasn’t sure why. It was clear that Zuko worked out, his arms were jacked, but, like, an appropriate amount of jacked. He wasn’t jacked to the point of being gross, but he could probably pin Sokka against a wall if he felt motivated to do so.

Sokka walked over to the wall of computers and noticed that Zuko was still scribbling something down on his paper.

“Taking notes on me already? I haven’t even sat down yet, hold your horses a bit!” Sokka teased as he set his backpack by one of the computers and settled into the seat.

Zuko looked up as he folded the paper he had been writing on in half. “I’m not taking notes on you, you’re not as interesting as you seem to think you are.” Sokka would have been offended by the words if he hadn’t noticed Zuko’s smirk as he said them. And, dammit, his smirk was cute too. He was making it rather difficult for Sokka to maintain his straightsona.

“Not only is that rude, but I also know that you’re lying. I am definitely the most interesting person you’ve encountered today.” Sokka was not flirting, this was simply straight person banter, like any straight person would do.

Zuko quirked an eyebrow (he only had one eyebrow to quirk, anyway) at Sokka. “Oh? And how can you be so certain of that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sokka responded. “I’m not going to reveal my methods to you, you’ll just have to sit in mystery for the rest of your life.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Whatever. There’s someone after you so can we just get this started?”

“Why are you asking me for permission? You’re the guy in charge here, I’m just a music ed major.”

Zuko ignored him. Fair. “Okay, so the test you’re about to take is going to test your reading comprehension and memorization skills.”

Sokka’s shoulders drooped. Uh oh. His brain could not handle large paragraphs of text, when he saw more than four sentences in row the Kill Bill sirens started going off in his brain and in order to get them to shut off he had to look away from the words altogether.

Zuko didn’t seem to notice this change in demeanor, because he kept talking.

“The program will give you a list of words to memorize in a set amount of time and then ask you to read a short article. After you’ve finished reading the article, it will ask you to list as many words as you can remember from the list in the order they were listed in, or as close as you can get to that. There is no time limit on this part of the test. Does that make sense or would you like me to repeat or clarify any part of the instructions?”

Oh. That was doable. He’d probably have to skim the article, but that was fine with him.

“No, that makes sense.” Sokka nodded to emphasize that the directions made sense to him. Body language was important, he had learned that in his conflict management course. This wasn’t a conflict, but body language probably still mattered here anyway.

“Ok, have fun.” Zuko stood up and wandered over to the desk in the front of the room. Sokka watched Zuko sit down and take out his phone before he turned toward the screen to begin the test. He had certainly expected there to be more wires and machines with blinking lights that measured his brain activity, not a mostly empty classroom with four computers and a desk. This was a lot less pressure than blinking lights and wires, though, so he wasn’t complaining too much.

He clicked the start button and started the test. He stared at the word list that popped up, just as Zuko had promised it would, and willed his brain to remember them. After he had stared at it for a moment, the screen changed to an article about a school bus crash. Well, that was cheery. Sokka skimmed the article, just as he had expected to. When he got to the end, he clicked the little blue arrow button in the bottom right corner of the screen. 

The screen was blank except a big white box, where Sokka assumed he was meant to type the words he had memorized. He started typing, surprising himself with how many of the words he had actually managed to remember. When he had finished typing he clicked another little blue arrow button in the bottom right corner, which took him to a screen that said in large blue letters “FINISHED.” which was as clear a message as any that Sokka had completed the test.

He looked over to Zuko, who had already been looking at him. Sokka wasn’t sure if he should smile or make a face at him or something, but he felt weird under Zuko’s intense gaze. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he had been watching Sokka, and he had a confused, but intrigued, expression on his face, like he was trying to figure Sokka out.

_Good luck with that,_ Sokka thought. Some small part of his brain suggested that maybe Zuko was looking at him like that because he recognized Sokka and was trying to remember where he knew him from. Sokka quickly stomped on that part of his brain. That part of his brain was an asshole who often got his hopes up for no good reason and he simply wasn’t in the mood for it today.

Sokka stood up and grabbed his backpack off of the floor, then proceeded to walk over to Zuko’s desk.

“The screen said ‘finished’ so I assumed I was finished, I hope I wasn’t mistaken.”

“No, that’s why we made it say ‘finished’, we figured it would be the clearest indicator that the test was finished.” Zuko replied, the same confused look still on his face. He looked at Sokka for a moment before he shook his head and reached for his trusty clipboard once more. He pulled two pieces of paper from the bottom of the stack and handed both of them to Sokka.

“You just need to sign these to prove that you actually took the test. You keep one of them and give me the other.” He plucked a pen out of the cup sitting in the corner of the desk and handed that to Sokka as well.

Sokka took the pen and leaned over the desk to quickly sign his name on the lines at the bottom of each page. When he was done he folded one of them up and slid it into the still-open pocket of his backpack, which he decided it was time to zip up again. He slid the other paper across the desk to Zuko and slipped the pen back into the cup.

“Have I fulfilled all the requirements? Is that it?” Sokka was surprised that it had been so easy, he had expected to struggle at least a little bit. Beyond the whole “acting straight” thing, that was a different kind of struggle.

“That’s it. “ Zuko paused, he seemed to be working through a decision. Sokka gave him a second to work it out in his head, he knew how difficult thoughts and decisions could be sometimes and didn’t want to interrupt. After a moment of consideration, Zuko seemed to make up his mind and took the folded piece of paper from earlier off of the clipboard. He held it out towards Sokka, without making eye contact. Sokka tried not to let his curiosity at the paper he was being handed show on his face, but he knew he was probably failing.

“Wait to unfold that until you get outside the building, just in case I’m wrong.” He explained, which wasn’t much of an explanation at all, but Sokka sensed that it was all he was going to get. He watched as Zuko bit his lip nervously. Cute.

“Yeah, okay. I can do that. Uhhh, well, have a good one, dude.” Sokka stuffed the paper in his hoodie pocket, careful not to crumple it.

“Yeah, have a good one.” Zuko echoed, giving Sokka that weird look again. Sokka was starting to think there was something on his face or something. Sokka really hoped there wasn’t something on his face.

He wasn’t sure what Zuko was thinking as he watched Sokka wave and step into the hallway, but he hoped it was something complimentary. Probably it wasn't, but Sokka hoped anyway. All of Sokka's thoughts of Zuko had been complimentary, it would be rude of Zuko not to return the favor.

The paper from Zuko was burning a hole in Sokka’s pocket as he pushed the down button on the elevator. He tried to ignore it as he stepped into the creakily opening doors, not wanting to break his word to Zuko even though he wasn’t there to see Sokka. He hit the little button with a ‘G’ on it, assuming that it meant, as that button meant in most other elevators Sokka had been in, that it would take him to the ground level. As he waited to see if this assumption was correct, Sokka tried, and failed, to think of anything except Zuko and the paper he had handed to Sokka. The elevator’s snail’s pace gave him plenty of time to consider what the note could possibly say. Was it a confession of love? A restraining order? The possibilities were endless and Sokka was running out of the control that was currently stopping him from just whipping the note out right this instant. He was relieved when the elevator finally shuddered to a halt on the first floor, and he quickly stumbled out of it and into the first floor lobby area.

He power walked (he was _not_ running, he was power walking) to the doors of the building, which he pushed through eagerly. As soon as he came to a stop, he pulled out the paper from Zuko, his heart was beating faster than usual, but Sokka decided to just blame that on the ridiculous cocktail of prescription stimulants and caffeine he had consumed throughout the day. He unfolded the note and immediately recognized the neat, blocky handwriting.

_Hey, sorry if this is creepy or whatever, but I feel like I remember you from a philosophy class I was in last semester? You look like the guy who sat behind me and always copied the notes from my notebook instead of trying to decipher the professor’s handwriting. Sorry if that wasn’t you and this is just some weird annoying note from a random guy._

_But if that was you, here’s my number. We should get coffee sometime and complain about how terrible that class was. If you want to. It’s totally cool if you don’t want to!_

Underneath the rambling text was indeed a phone number. Zuko had also signed his name at the bottom. Sokka could no longer deny the racing of his heart being caused by this cute, sarcastic psych major who seemed to know way too much about Kantian ethics.

He pulled out his phone and opened up the messages app. He quickly, but carefully, typed in the number from the paper and then started to compose his message.

**_Me:_ ** _You weren’t wrong, that guy was in fact me. Kevin’s handwriting was absolutely horrendous, your notes saved my grade in that class._

He sent this message before immediately starting another one.

**_Me:_ ** _I would love to get coffee sometime, but only if it’s a date._

He quickly amended this statement.

**_Me:_ ** _Also, we can’t go to Starbucks, not a good first date spot imo_

He stood and stared at his phone screen, willing himself not to freak out at his own message. Sure, Sokka was definitely into the guy, and he had written Sokka a note, but it wasn’t like it was a particularly flirty note. He very well could have been seriously only interested in discussing their stoned Philosophy professor and his illegible handwriting. 

**_Unsaved Number:_ ** _Sounds perfect!_

Sokka’s eyes widened involuntarily as the message from Zuko came in, and was quickly followed by another one.

**_Unsaved Number:_ ** _Are you free tomorrow at 1?_

Sokka did his best not to smile at his phone like a besotted teenage girl, but that was exactly what he was doing as he typed out his reply.

**_Me:_ ** _I would probably say that i was free even if i wasn’t, but i actually am_

 **_Unsaved Number:_ ** _I’m not sure i believe you since you just said you were willing to lie about that_

 **_Me:_ ** _I KANT believe you don’t believe me_

A minute went by without a response from Zuko, which was not doing great things for Sokka’s nerves. As he waited anxiously for a response, he saved the number to his contacts as “Zuko”. It wasn’t funny or creative, but he figured he could change it to something funnier later once he had learned a bit more about Zuko.

His phone buzzed again and Sokka let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

**_Zuko:_ ** _For your sake, I’m just going to pretend you didn’t just try to flirt with me with Kant of all things_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _also, no i don’t believe you_

 **_Me:_ ** _What if i promised that i wasn’t lying? Would that help?_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _Try it and find out_

 **_Me:_ ** _I promise i’m not lying about being free for coffee tomorrow at 1_

 **_Me:_ ** _Did it work?_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _Surprisingly? Yes, it did_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _I have to go, there’s someone coming in rn, but i’ll text you after?_

 **_Me:_ ** _I would love that :)_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _:)_

 **_Zuko:_ ** _ <3 _

  
  


Ok, so maybe it hadn’t been _that_ bad of a day.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed, feel free to come harass me on tumblr @s-sokka!!


End file.
